In the footsteps of St Eugene de Mazenod
The exquisite city of Aix-en-Provence in the South of France is birthplace of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and of our Founder, St Eugene de Mazenod. Today, it is home to an International De Mazenod Centre where groups of Oblates from around the world come to study the Founder and Oblate Spirituality.
This week, eight younger Oblates from the Anglo-Irish Province are here in Aix to walk in Eugene’s footsteps, see the places associated with him and hear the stories from his life as they seek to imbibe his spirit. Provincial, Fr Willie Fitzpatrick and Fr Tom McCabe are accompanying the group.
We will spend our last two days here looking at the future of our own province, the challenges and possibilities before us today, and as we do so, seek to draw inspiration from these first days walking in Eugene de Mazenod's footsteps.
The International De Mazenod Centre is based in the old Carmelite Convent where Eugene lived with his first like-minded companions. They, like him, were passionately interested in bringing the Church alive for the poor and excluded people of post-Revolution Aix.
This desire to be a priest for the poor becomes all the more surprising as one walks the few hundred metres from the Foundation House where Eugene founded his Congregation to the mansion on the exclusive Cours Mirabeau where he was born into the nobility and lived until he was nine years old. His family had to flee Aix as the Revolution grew in intensity.
It is now Monday evening and the end of our first day here, a day spent walking around Eugene’s home town, linking his life and mission to the places associated with him.
It has been our privilege to have as our guide Fr Ned Carolan OMI, a man steeped in Eugene’s life and the complex and challenging times in which he lived. All day he has been opening our eyes to new aspects of Eugene. This morning as we moved through the rooms of the foundation house, he introduced us to a courageous young priest determined not to become a nobleman priest, but to work with those neglected by the Church, particularly young people and the poor. We saw how simply he and his companions lived as they devoted themselves to renewing the Church. And we had time to ponder and pray.
In the afternoon, as we walked through the city we saw the prison where he chose to work with prisoners, the most abandoned of all in his day. And we walked the road he walked as he accompanied many prisoners to their place of execution.
He and his companions preached missions in Provencal, the language of the poor, to capacity congregations. On one occasion, space was so limited for a mission at the Cathedral that he asked the bishop for permission to remove a steel grill which divided the choir stalls from the congregation in order to make space for the crowds. The bishop gave permission and Eugene and his companions immediately removed the grill (with hacksaws!).
The next night the angry Canons of Cathedral closed the doors causing a near riot by the crowds locked out. Eugene had to be called on to calm the crowds and he did so by preaching the sermon of his life to this huge crowd from the steps outside what is now the Oblate Church in Aix.
Tomorrow, we will spend the day in Marseilles, the other city that was so much part of his life and work.